Chapter XII.

How vainglory may be useful to us.

But in one matter vainglory is
found to be a useful thing for beginners. I mean by those who are still
troubled by carnal sins, as for instance, if, when they are troubled by
the spirit of fornication, they formed an idea of the dignity of the
priesthood, or of reputation among all men, by which they may be
thought saints and immaculate: and so with these considerations they
repell the unclean suggestions of lust, as deeming them base and at
least unworthy of their rank and reputation; and so by means of a
smaller evil they overcome a greater one. For it is better for a man to
be troubled by the sin of vainglory than for him to fall into the
desire for fornication, from which he either cannot recover at all or
only with great difficulty after he has fallen.
345And this thought is admirably expressed
by one of the prophets speaking in the person of God, and saying:
“For My name’s sake I will remove My wrath afar off: and
with My praise I will bridle thee lest thou shouldest
perish,”13351335Is. xlviii. 9. i.e., while you
are enchained by the praises of vainglory, you cannot possibly rush on
into the depths of hell, or plunge irrevocably into the commission of
deadly sins. Nor need we wonder that this passion has the power of
checking anyone from rushing into the sin of fornication, since it has
been again and again proved by many examples that when once a man has
been affected by its poison and plague, it makes him utterly
indefatigable, so that he scarcely feels a fast of even two or three
days. And we have often known some who are living in this desert,
confessing that when their home was in the monasteries of Syria they
could without difficulty go for five days without food, while now they
are so overcome with hunger even by the third hour, that they can
scarcely keep on their daily fast to the ninth hour. And on this
subject there is a very neat answer of Abbot Macarius13361336 Cf. note on the
Institutes V. xli. to one who asked him why he was
troubled with hunger as early as the third hour in the desert, when in
the monastery he had often scorned food for a whole week, without
feeling hungry. “Because,” said he, “here there is
nobody to see your fast, and feed and support you with his praise of
you: but there you grew fat on the notice of others and the food of
vainglory.” And of the way in which, as we said, the sin of
fornication is prevented by an attack of vainglory, there is an
excellent and significant figure in the book of Kings, where, when the
children of Israel had been taken captive by Necho, King of Egypt,
Nebuchadnezzar, King of Assyria, came up and brought them back from the
borders of Egypt to their own country, not indeed meaning to restore
them to their former liberty and their native land, but meaning to
carry them off to his own land and to transport them to a still more
distant country than the land of Egypt in which they had been
prisoners. And this illustration exactly applies to the case before us.
For though there is less harm in yielding to the sin of vainglory than
to fornication, yet it is more difficult to escape from the dominion of
vainglory. For somehow or other the prisoner who is carried off to a
greater distance, will have more difficulty in returning to his native
land and the freedom of his fathers, and the prophet’s rebuke
will be deservedly aimed at him: “Wherefore art thou grown old in
a strange country?13371337Baruch iii. 11. since a man
is rightly said to have grown old in a strange country, if he has not
broken up the ground of his faults. Of pride there are two kinds: (1)
carnal, and (2) spiritual, which is the worse. For it especially
attacks those who are seen to have made progress in some good
qualities.